Day 25 – Venice the Menace

After a very long trip from Athens last night I arrived in Venice. Italy on the whole has presented itself as not very tourist friendly. Venice is no different and is actually worse. People might totally disagree with me for saying that but its the little niceties that I base my opinion on. As someone who is travelling to a budget and seeing multiple countries on a tight schedule I feel that I would have a different view to someone who is just holidaying in Italy for one or more weeks and won’t be venturing anywhere else. Since their focus (and money) is dedicated to the country they landed in they probably won’t bat an eyelid to the things that have made mine flap the whole time I’ve been in Italy.

That’s not to say that I don’t like Italy or haven’t enjoyed my time here its just that they aren’t exactly going out of their way to make my stay easier. Things like the whole Internet debacle I’ve already mentioned, but Venice took things a little further by charging for things like tourist maps and other simple things where other cities give them away with a warm smile and a welcome to our city/country we like your money kind of attitude. Sometimes I’m glad its sinking. Well maybe I won’t go that far.

I’ve found that my attitude towards each destination can really change depending on the condition/quality of the hostel I’m staying too. It didn’t help that the hostel in Venice was a dive and also charged $42 a night. I was also annoyed that they gave women a $10 discount. Yay for sexism. They peg it as way for the girls to feel safe in a girls only dorm. I think its a thinly veiled ploy to get more girls in the joint if you know what I mean. So yeah if I’m not happy about my base I’m a bit more prone to being annoyed by the little things.

Venice itself was nice. I mostly wandered around exploring the place. There isn’t a whole lot to do there and a lot of it looks the same but its fun to explore the maze like alley ways and see where you end up, or how lost you can get. You can’t get that lost really. It is an island after all. You walk in one direction long enough and you’ll end up hitting water.

I booked an overnight train to Munich so I had until 10:51pm to explore. I think I lapped the place three or four times. One of the highlights of my time in Venice was seen a big cruise ship sail past the shore up near San Marco Square. The ship was taller than all of the buildings in Venice. It was huge.

Even though Venice is surrounded by water with canals cutting through the whole place its really a concrete jungle. It was a hot sunny day and it was really hard to escape the heat. There are no green areas. I found a tiny little park near San Marco Square and that was it. I even tried going into the McDonalds to escape the heat for a while but it was actually hotter inside.

I took a water taxi from one end of the grand canal to the other. It takes about 45 min to go from one end to the other and is a good alternative to a sight seeing bus. It helped fill in the time but it wasn’t as great as it read. There wasn’t a whole lot of visibility from the boat and it was pretty packed. The wharf was fun though. Fully floating. At one point I thought I was going to get sea sick before I even got on the boat. It was fun. Kind of like a bouncy castle just the floor moved with you.

So by the time I’d been round and round and round again and frequented this very cheap pizza and gelati store a few times throughout the day I decided to grab my bag and head to the train station and wait for my train.

You know something I miss? Muesli bars. You can’t get them over here. The closest thing I’ve found which was called a muesli bar was actually a cereal bar with some rolled oats in it. Still covered in chocolate. I don’t know what the secret is to shopping for groceries over here is. I certainly haven’t cracked it yet. Supermarkets in Australia just make more sense.

So I’m heading to Munich tonight. I was going to go through Switzerland but I couldn’t get a train to match up with the check in times of the hostels and would give me time to look around Venice. The Swiss don’t seem to like working late but they know how to charge for it. Oh well it means I’ll be able to fit in Budapest instead.